Cycle Goa, India with Hostelling International

[Published in the August 2009 issue of Goa Today Magazine]

Backroads “Slow Goa” tour targets cyclists and activists

YHAI cycle expedition takes an early start out of Assolna, Goa (click to view photo gallery)

Visitors have toured Goa by car, motorbike, bus, boat and train; but now – thanks to the Goa Branch of Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI) and Sports Authority of Goa – adventurers and activists can learn about the state’s natural beauty and social issues from the seat of a bicycle.

Says Panjim-based Program Director Manoj Joshi, who added a series of seven-day, 360-kilometre bike expeditions to YHAI’s popular trekking programmes last year, “We wanted to create a tour with the activist in mind. Cycling is a sport for people who have an awareness of environmental and development issues. This expedition shows beaches, nature, and water falls but it also shows how Goa is being deforested; how the greed of the few is displacing families, and the rape of the nature.”

To that end, Joshi and his team volunteered months of their time researching equipment, attractions and routes. In 2008, they provided five groups of twenty cyclists with knapsacks and 24-speed mountain bikes for a circular route that reached as far east as the Karnataka border. Starting from Panjim (Goa’s capital city), youngsters and grandfathers alike pedaled south along the Arabian Sea on Colva-area beaches, east through Balli’s terraced paddy fields and Cavrem’s mining villages; up into the ecologically significant Western Ghat mountains; and then west along the freighter-trafficked Mandovi River past Old Goa (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and back into Panjim.

Along the way, cyclists stayed in rooms in Assolna’s sports complex, lodges in Netravali’s Tanshikar Spice Farm, tents near Dudsaghar Falls in Bhagwan Mahaveer Sanctuary, and dorms in Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary. Extra side trips included Budbudyanchi Talli (Bubbling Lake) at Gopinath Temple; a forest trek and swim at Savari Falls; a zoo tour of cobras, guars and leopards in Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary; and a visit to the Bom Jesus Cathedral in Old Goa.

The YHAI Goa Biking Expedition runs December/January of each year and is open to anyone who is a member of Hostelling International or Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI). Joshi estimates the 2009/2010 fees will be Rs 3000 ($61 USD) for Indians and Rs 5000 ($102 USD) for foreign visitors. Bicycles, rucksacks, safety equipment, accommodation, and meals are all included in the price of the trip. For more information contact Manoj Joshi, Sports Authority of Goa,
or visit YHAI’s web site at www.yhaindia.org.

• Photos: 2008 YHAI bike tour in Goa, India
• Stories: 2008 YHAI bike  tour in Goa, India
• Girl Gone Goa – tales of travel, sex, magic and cycling

A “gonzo” rail and bike trip around Western Canada

Being on a train is like riding a bicycle: it’s slow, social, historic, and rebellious

What is it about trains? And what was it about a train journey into western Canada that yanked on my heart hard enough to make my eyes water? That wasn’t the idea. When we first batted the idea around, Momentum editor Amy Walker and I played with a “gonzo car-free road trip” that would see me, a buddy, and a couple of bikes onto a few trains and into a few communities for laffs and blog stories.

To select a route I pored over road atlases and train brochures and happily found that, not only can you circle the region by train (as opposed to just going across), but that two rail providers ~ Rocky Mountaineer Vacations and VIA Rail Canada ~ are wowing the tourists doing just that.

Now, I’ve travelled by bike and train in Thailand, New Zealand and the U.S.; but it wasn’t until California-based Dahon put a couple of tour-ready folding bikes into my hands that I even considered doing it at home.

Cuba photo gallery

Cycle from Varadero to Vinales along the Circuito Norte

Got two weeks for a holiday? Sit on a bike instead of a barstool! I discovered fourteen days is plenty of time to explore Cuba’s Circuito Norte by bike. From resort-town Varadero, through Havana, to the peaceful Vinales valley, it’s a perfect, paved, almost-flat view of the island’s less known northwestern coast.

Matanzas (east of Havana), Cuba (click to open gallery)

Cuba travelogue (photo gallery with commentary):

Independent bike travel in: Varadero, Matanzas, Playa Jibacoa, Guanabo, Cojimar, La Habana (Havana), Vinales, Puerto Esperanza, Cayo Levisa, Play La Altura, Playa San Pedro, and Playa Baracoa.

I Recommend…

MAP:
The Rough Guide Map: Cuba – excellent 1:850,000 scale with contours & distance markers
READ:
Lonely Planet “Cycling Cuba” – a bit out of date (2002) and the routes are a bit picky, but good overall touring info and maps
Georgia Straight writer Andrew Scott’s experiences with casa particulars

WEBSITES:
- Cuba’s version of inexpensive B&B’s: www.casaparticular.info
- Hotels in a variety of price ranges: www.particularcuba.com
- Bike-friendly Skyquest flies economic direct flights from Vancouver to Cuba with no charge for bikes, and no need to box them (they provide a $5.00 plastic bag) www.sunquest.net
- Bicycles Crossing Borders: a Toronto-based organization that ships used bikes and parts to Cuba. www.bikestocuba.org

Cojimar

Havana

Vinales

Heading for the Hills? Then Get on the Bus

Stress-free snow bus services to B.C. mountains for when you’d rather ride than drive

Mittens firmly in the 10 and 2 o’clock positions, I was driving behind a Greyhound bus one winter morning when an impatient driver turned a Celica from a side road in front of the coach, lost control on the icy shoulder, bounced off the side of the bus, and–shooting off fractured quarter panels and shattered glass–spun to a stop five metres in front of me. I realized then that I’d be better off inside the bus than behind it.

Ski-tour operators and bus companies agree. Moose Travel Network, Destination Snow, Canadian Outback, Snowclub, and even Greyhound have hit the highways with stress-free bus services to B.C. mountains. Cheap and flexible, the ski-bus trips are ideal for adventurous skiers and snowboarders–both locals and tourists–who’d rather ride than drive.

Unlike the SUV driven by your mom, boyfriend, or buddy, these vehicles are steered by professional drivers. Other benefits? They’re righteously HOV, they often include movies, giveaways, and discounts, and (ahem) they’re a great way to meet new people with similar interests.

Village Hostels on the Sunshine Coast

Three coastal “backpacker B&Bs” welcome budget travelers north of Vancouver

Marney and son Coulter of Up The Creek Backpacker's B&B in Roberts Creek

I used to sell panniers at Vancouver’s Bike Doctor and when novice cyclists would come in and say they were going to spend a “relaxing” weekend biking the Gulf Islands, I’d cringe. There’s got to be an easier way for these people to discover the simple joys of bike touring, I thought; a destination with less gravity-defying hills, a shorter ferry ride, comparable island cachet and cheaper accommodations.

Since then I’ve thrown my bike on the #257 Horseshoe Bay bus and confirmed that this place does exist but the catch is ~ it’s not an island; it’s the thirty or so kilometers between Gibsons Landing, Roberts Creek and Sechelt known as the Sunshine Coast.

Each of the three villages are spaced fairly evenly apart and are linked by the Georgia Strait coastline, the paved-shouldered Highway 101, and a bike-rack equipped Sunshine Coast Transit System. The curious traveller can sample a day’s worth of arts, eats and adventures by bike or bus, then settle into an cozy hostel-type accommodation when it gets dark.

Monthly salons draw fans of flying solo

Where do you book an off-season college-dorm bed in Edinburgh? Which cruise lines don’t charge single travellers an extra fee for a cabin? Is it really possible to experience a fulfilling, worry-free adventure if you travel by yourself?

Advice, anecdotes, and appetizers fly across the table at the Solo Travellers’ Cafés. For those who have journeyed by themselves –or want to– this monthly salon offers up servings of solo-oriented tales and information at an eatery near you.

Created less than a year ago by “returned” traveller and workshop instructor Deborah Tiffany, the roving café, usually held on the second Wednesday of every month, has attracted up to 50 participants to neighbourhood tapas, dessert, and ethnic restaurants. A table of 20 café-goers joined Tiffany at Commercial Drive’s Artistico Greek Café recently. Prompted to describe their latest trips, the chatting travellers recounted tales ranging from a Canadian studies work term in Scotland and a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas to a road trip up the Yukon’s Dempster Highway and a cross-country tour of France’s valleys.

Hostels can be ‘lux’ for just a few bucks

West Coast accommodations debunk myths and welcome families

TOFINO, B.C. — It’s a characteristically wet, winter day and, as a Whalers on the Point Guesthouse visitor, you find yourself faced with a difficult decision so early in the day. Should you sip rosehip tea and watch for whales in the solarium, curl up with a thick West Coast guidebook in front of the massive stone fireplace or bake a batch of chunky cookies with some new British, Aussie and Brazilian friends in the kitchen?

Life is good at this exclusive, award-winning Vancouver Island hostel and — for the nominal cost of a hosteling membership — it’s yours for only $22 a night.

A hostel?

“A lot of people in North America are still unaware of hostels,” says Shelbey Sy, from Hostelling International’s Vancouver office. She and other staff realized that, despite its century-old history as a member-driven, not-for-profit association, Canadians still have a lot of misconceptions about hostels.

The staff started hosting workshops regularly called “Hostelling 101″ to debunk myths, share hostel basics and give “locals” the scoop on what five million worldwide travellers already know: hostels can be “lux” for not a lot of bucks.